I thought you guys would find this one interesting, so I decided to post it up. Should avoid the many driver and application problems Vista caused at launch.

Article taken from Source:
If you thought Microsoft was going to dump Windows XP completely, think again.

Windows 7 is approaching its official release date not too long from now, and this week Microsoft unveiled one of the "secret" technologies that will ship with Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise and Ultimate.

Called XP Mode or XPM for short, the new feature essentially virtualizes the legacy Windows XP operating environment within Windows 7. That is, users will be able to install all applications that were previously only fully working with Windows XP, on their Windows 7 desktop without having to resort to a dual-boot solution.

Indeed, Windows 7 comes with "compatibility mode" but XPM isn't the same. XPM is actually built on the same platform as Microsoft's Virtual PC 7 product. This isn't the same as running an XP environment through a hypervisor. It was previously believed that XPM would be a Hyper-V client for Windows 7, but it is not.

However, XPM will utilize virtualization technologies in recent processors from both AMD and Intel, such as Intel's VT.

Users will be able to install a Windows XP application, and launch it seamlessly on the same Windows 7 desktop, along side Windows 7 versions of the same application, without actually affecting the core operating system. This fact alone, allows Microsoft to continue to support Windows XP in a virtualized environment, thereby giving legacy support without actually building loads of legacy code into Windows 7. This not only improves Windows 7's stability and speed, but also security.

At this time, Microsoft is claiming that XPM provides near perfect Windows XP compatibility within Windows 7.

Microsoft will include a full license of Windows XP SP3 with every copy of Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise and Ultimate for use with XPM.

No, RC = Release Candidate, which is the one before the release. Although, they could go to RC2, etc. if they find it necessary. RTM = Release-To-Manufacturer, which is basically the one that will be retail, but is given early to some vendors/OEM.

While I appreciate the effort I sense it is not apps that bug people but drivers, reading up this looks to be a complete version of what WINE is trying to achieve along with a few nods to the hardcoded directories.

Users will be able to install a Windows XP application, and launch it seamlessly on the same Windows 7 desktop, along side Windows 7 versions of the same application, without actually affecting the core operating system. This fact alone, allows Microsoft to continue to support Windows XP in a virtualized environment, thereby giving legacy support without actually building loads of legacy code into Windows 7. This not only improves Windows 7's stability and speed, but also security.

At this time, Microsoft is claiming that XPM provides near perfect Windows XP compatibility within Windows 7.

Microsoft will include a full license of Windows XP SP3 with every copy of Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise and Ultimate for use with XPM.

Windows 7 is not going to come with Windows XP "Integrated" into it. Windows 7 is going to have the option of having a virtual machine installed onto it which is custom tailored to Windows XP. It runs a virtual instance of the OS, and isn't very different than preexisting technologies such as the free virtual machine Virtual Box. The VM in Windows 7 is just customized to XP and melds the two system's windows together much like Parallel's Desktop or VM Ware Fusion for the Mac.

This VM don't help with driver issues for the most part, Microsoft has said it won't run old games well, and most importantly, you still need a legal serial number for XP. As seen by the fact that this is only built into the business versions of Windows 7, it's apparent that this is mostly intended for businesses with legacy apps, not the everyday consumer.

It's interesting that Microsoft is building this into Windows 7, but this isn't going to be a noteworthy app for 99% of consumers.

Windows 7 is not going to come with Windows XP "Integrated" into it. Windows 7 is going to have the option of having a virtual machine installed onto it which is custom tailored to Windows XP. It runs a virtual instance of the OS, and isn't very different than preexisting technologies such as the free virtual machine Virtual Box. The VM in Windows 7 is just customized to XP and melds the two system's windows together much like Parallel's Desktop or VM Ware Fusion for the Mac.

This VM don't help with driver issues for the most part, Microsoft has said it won't run old games well, and most importantly, you still need a legal serial number for XP. As seen by the fact that this is only built into the business versions of Windows 7, it's apparent that this is mostly intended for businesses with legacy apps, not the everyday consumer.

It's interesting that Microsoft is building this into Windows 7, but this isn't going to be a noteworthy app for 99% of consumers.

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Part of this is incorrect. When they state that XP will come with W7, it's also stated that it's a full license, meaning you're getting the serial along with it and chances are it'll be an OEM version which will stop most average user from try to use to key elsewhere as it'll be tied to the virtual pc specs (you're getting 2 OSes for the price of one). This is being put on the high end versions of the product as an incentive to buy those versions. This is equivalent of the stupid Ultimate stuff for Vista.

I'm still trying to figure out what drive issues people are having. The driver issues for W7 should be pretty close to non-existent due to the fact that the build being released will be marked under the 6.1, which means pretty much full compatibility with drivers for Vista. Even when I was using Vista 32-bit, I was able to install most of the XP drivers with no issues and I was able to do so for the W7 public release as well.

I would have been nicer if they had used the Hyper-V for the virtualization as it's much better at using the computer resources for virtual OSes. It's possible that stuff from Hyper-V might have been integrated into VPC2008 though.